Poem of the Week: Bianca Spriggs

First thing we should do/if we see each other again is to make/a cage of our bodies
—Nick Flynn, forgetting something

1.
You find me pirouetting slow
in a tent before an exaltation of men,
dim lights, the scent of refuse
and popcorn and tobacco spit,
the clink of coins changing hands,
the lure of something both sordid
and sanctified.

2.
You follow me everywhere.Where do you sleep?
I show you my thatch of straw.What do you eat?
I serve you cave crickets and potato bugs.How do you bathe?
We stand outside for an entire rain
leaping into puddles.Why are the feathers on your throat red?
I say that is only for my mate to know.How would your mate know?
My mate would not have to ask.

3.
Weary of your eyes,
I introduce you to Python Woman.
Her grip, you mention, is impressive,
as is the overlapping leather of her scales,
but you find her endless bunching
and uncoiling unnerving. And the skins
all over her floor, just bad housekeeping.
Venom clings to every fiber.
It will take weeks to rid the smell
from your clothes.

4.
The first time you touch me is an accident.
We are laughing together,
as though you are not only interested
in my hollow bones or my tendency to molt
before I go onstage.
As though you would with anyone,
your hand reaches for me, eyes snapped
tight as two lids over jar mouths
your fingers graze a feather—halt
when they remember.

5.
I’ve seen you sitting mostly naked
patching together found feathers.
Are those supposed to be ________?

6.
The ringmaster wants you to leave.
The bloodcoils around her eyes
convince you it is, in fact, time to go.
She sends the twins to watch you pack.
They argue over what kind of business
you might try that would be considered funny.

7.
You want to know the future.Will I see you again?
Uncertain.Do you feel anything for me?
I do not know.Anything?
I tilt my head and do not blink. You hate that.Then, goodbye.
I look to the sky, smell rain.

8.
Why I no longer fly:
From here, it is the same view.

Everyone is a fossil,
excavated marionettes breaking
through crests of earth.

From here, a collection of upturned
eyes is a light show splayed
over uncut stones.

Here, we are all seraphs caught
in a mist net, and left
abandoned by the sky.

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Affrilachian Poet and Cave Canem Fellow, Bianca Spriggs, is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Lexington, Kentucky. The author of Kaffir Lily and How Swallowtails Become Dragons, Bianca is the recipient of a 2013 Al Smith Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry, multiple Artist Enrichment and Arts Meets Activism grants from the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and a Pushcart Prize Nominee. In partnership with the Kentucky Domestic Violence Association, she is the creator of “The SwallowTale Project” a traveling creative writing workshop designed for incarcerated women.